[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 20 (Monday, May 22, 2000)]
[Pages 1148-1151]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the 50th Anniversary of Armed Forces Day in Suitland, 
Maryland

May 19, 2000

    Thank you very much. Secretary Cohen, thank you for your kind words 
and your truly exemplary leadership of the Department of Defense. 
Secretary Slater, thank you for your presence here and the support you 
have given the Coast Guard. General Shelton, thank you for your lifetime 
of service and for your leadership of the Joint Chiefs. And Senator 
Glenn, I thank you for your service, your personal friendship to me, and 
your astonishing lifetime example. We're all looking forward to going 
into space in our late seventies, thanks to you. I thank the members of 
the Joint Chiefs and the Service Secretaries. General Jones, General 
Shalikashvili, thank you for being here. Ladies and gentlemen of our 
Armed Forces, family members, and friends.
    I want to begin, if I might, by paying tribute to the men and women 
of our military who work in the White House, my Andrews-based Air Force 
One crews, my helicopter crews, my military aides, and those from

[[Page 1149]]

every branch of the services who actually work at 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue. Without you, we couldn't do America's business, stand up for 
America's interests, or even keep the White House open as America's 
house. Thank you for 7\1/2\ wonderful years.
    As has already been said, 50 years ago tomorrow America marked the 
first Armed Forces Day. It was then an uncertain time for our country, 
Americans coming to realize that our new global leadership carried with 
it global responsibilities, chief among them, the defense of freedom 
across the world. American troops then still occupied Germany and soon 
would be pouring into Korea. All around us there were new and terrifying 
weapons, determined adversaries, and an unfamiliar landscape. Against 
that backdrop, President Truman moved to put in place the foundations of 
America's modern military, a force united under the Department of 
Defense.
    The first Armed Forces Day celebrated service unity, honored those 
in uniform, and reassured Americans that our military was ready for 
whatever challenges lay ahead. Fifty years later we can look back 
proudly on a half-century in which America's best have more than met 
those challenges. We are as secure at home and safe from external threat 
today as we have been at any time in our long history. For that, we owe 
every American in uniform and everyone who has served before an eternal 
debt.
    Next week, as we celebrate Memorial Day, we will remember the 
thousands of men and women who have given their lives so that we might 
live in peace. I hope all Americans will teach our children how their 
forebears fought and died for the freedoms we hold dear. I have asked 
every office in the Federal Government to observe a moment of 
remembrance for our military dead, to put the ``memorial'' back in 
Memorial Day.
    Over my service as President, I have seen our men and women in 
uniform meet every conceivable kind of challenge, from flying flawless 
missions over Kosovo to working to contain Saddam Hussein to keeping our 
word on the Korean Peninsula to slogging through the mud to rebuild 
lives and communities in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in Central 
America to keeping the peace in Bosnia, and everywhere you go, always 
representing the best of America.
    Some of you have mentioned to me, from time to time as I meet our 
service personnel, that you see in the pictures at the Oval Office the 
stands of military coins I have there given to me by units, officers, 
and enlisted personnel all over the world. I have about 400 now. And my 
historians at the White House say I have visited more military units 
than any President before. All I can tell you is, it's been one of the 
great honors of my life. I never get tired of it. And if you have a coin 
I don't have, I'd be glad to have it today. [Laughter]
    I never cease to be amazed at all the different things we ask our 
Armed Forces to do. We ask them to serve in the White House or in 
Kosovo's Camp Bondsteel, on the deck of a carrier or on the crew of a 
space shuttle launch. We ask you to defend our interests in a 21st 
century world of high-tech weapons, fast-moving, small-scale warfare, 
peacekeeping--sometimes when there's no peace to keep--and terrorism. 
But the 21st century challenge is the same essentially as President 
Truman defined 50 years ago, readiness for any eventuality. Today I want 
to talk just a little bit about what we are doing and must continue to 
do in the areas of personnel readiness, combat readiness, and civilian 
readiness to help you meet that challenge.
    As has already been said by previous speakers, the people in our 
Armed Forces are our most important asset. So our first task is doing 
the best job we can of recruiting and retaining good people, to train 
them to do their jobs right, to train them so they can do their jobs 
safely, and then to provide the state-of-the-art equipment that will 
keep them ahead of every adversary and every eventuality.
    Keeping faith with you is a sacred obligation. We've tried to do it. 
Over the last 2 years, military pay has been raised by more than 8 
percent, with another significant raise slated for this year. This 
year's raise was the largest in about 20 years. In July we're increasing 
parts of the military pay scale as much as 5 percent more to reward 
service members who gain experience and stay with us to put it to use.

[[Page 1150]]

    And we must never forget that, although we recruit individuals, we 
must retain families. Thanks to the leadership in the Department of 
Defense, military child care and schools are now the envy of many 
civilians. We are working to provide better military housing and taking 
steps to improve access to medical care for all military personnel, 
families, and retirees.
    Readiness also means making sure our forces are trained to fight and 
equipped to win. The world we live in demands a high tempo of 
operations. That puts strains on individuals and families and creates 
important challenges for readiness.
    I realize that I am the first President to serve his entire service 
in the post-cold-war era and that, as a consequence, I have imposed more 
high-tempo operations on the military, more different kinds of things in 
more different circumstances than any previous President in peacetime. 
Often, when I see our young men and women in uniform, I don't know 
whether to thank them or apologize, because I know what burdens I have 
imposed on many of you and your families. All I can tell you is America 
is a safer, stronger place, and the world is a more peaceful, more 
democratic place because of what you have done. And we have to continue 
to do everything we can to ease your burdens and make it more likely 
that you will be successful.
    We have tried to watch combat readiness closely. We have tried to 
respond rapidly where there are strains. For several years now, we've 
increased the amount of money available for readiness spending, 
including $5.4 billion for the year ahead. We've worked with Congress to 
protect funds for training and equipment and proposed an increase of 
$124 billion to support military personnel, strengthen readiness, and 
speed modernization with improved facilities through the next 5 years. 
That includes the latest advances in digital communications and 
navigation technology for soldiers in the field, advanced combat 
aircraft, like Super Hornets, Raptors, and the Joint Strike fighter, new 
and modernized destroyers, and a new aircraft carrier and, less exciting 
but perhaps even more important, more money for spare parts.
    I've talked about our budget and priorities for readiness, but we 
also must meet our responsibility for civilian readiness, creating an 
understanding among our elected officials and among our people at large 
that power and prestige don't just happen, that America cannot be a 
leader for peace and freedom and prosperity without paying the price. 
Civilian readiness means commitment to keeping our military the best 
trained, the best equipped, the best led fighting force. It means 
support for diplomacy that can help us avoid using force in the first 
place. It means that when we do make the difficult decision to commit 
our troops, we stay the course.
    Secretary Cohen talked about our involvement in Kosovo. Last spring 
I had the privilege of meeting with our fighting men and women from 
Barksdale and Norfolk to Aviano and Skopje. When I met the Wing 
Commander of Spangdahlem Air Force Base in Germany, he told me, ``Sir, 
our team wants to stay with this mission until it's finished.'' He could 
have spoken for every one of our men and women in uniform. When we and 
our Allies responded to the rising tide of violence in Kosovo, we sent a 
message of hope and determination to Europe and all the world.
    Let me remind you that there had previously been a terrible war in 
Bosnia. It took the world community a long time to respond. When we did, 
we put an end to it, and people are living and working together there in 
peace. Then as if no lesson had been learned, Mr. Milosevic drove nearly 
a million people out of their homes in a poor country, over difficult 
roads and adverse circumstances. Thousands lost their lives, but nearly 
a million people were run out of their country just because of their 
ethnic background and the way they worship God. That was a threat to our 
national interests because it was a threat to the security and stability 
of southeastern Europe and because it was a colossal affront to the 
basic notions of human rights and freedom.
    The 20th century has witnessed a lot of this kind of hate and human 
suffering. But it ended with an affirmation of freedom and human 
dignity, because in the face of division and destruction, we helped to 
stand with our

[[Page 1151]]

Allies and good people in that region for humanity and for freedom.
    Well, what's happened since then? Our troops are on the ground in 
Kosovo, doing another job every bit as vital, working to help the people 
there rebuild their lives and build a lasting peace. Now our Allies and 
partners have taken on the lion's share of the burden. Since the end of 
the conflict, our European Allies and others are supplying 85 percent of 
the troops and nearly 85 percent of the police on the ground. Our share 
of international assistance for Kosovo is now well under 20 percent.
    It's been a fair burden sharing because we bore the majority of the 
responsibility for the military conflict that made the peace possible. 
But it's still important that we do our part. Our presence is vital, for 
our forces symbolize something fundamental about the promise of America, 
the possibility of true peace and, frankly, the confidence your presence 
gives to others because nobody doubts that if any job can be done, you 
will do it. Our forces in Kosovo are doing a terrific job under still 
difficult circumstances. We must give them the tools to succeed and the 
time to succeed.
    Yesterday the Senate of the United States, in bipartisan fashion, 
cast a profoundly important vote. They affirmed our Nation's commitment 
to stay the course in Kosovo, rejecting language that would have called 
our resolve into question, permitting people to say, had it passed, that 
the United States would walk away from a job half-done and leave others 
to finish. But the Senate said, ``No, we won't walk out on our Allies. 
We won't turn our back on freedom's promise. It may be a difficult job, 
but we started it, and we intend to finish it.'' And I would like to 
thank the Senators, Republicans as well as Democrats, and the American 
leaders around the country, Republicans as well as Democrats, who took 
this position to stand by you until the mission is completed.
    In 1963, on Armed Forces Day, a great American veteran, President 
John Kennedy, said that our service men and women ``stand as guardians 
of peace and visible evidence of our determination to meet any threat to 
the peace with measured strength and high resolve. They are also 
evidence of a harsh but inescapable truth, that the survival of freedom 
requires great cost and commitment and great personal sacrifice.''
    We're a long way from the cold war world in which President Kennedy 
spoke those words. But today, the words are still true, where you stand 
as freedom's guardians in a world where communication is instant but so 
is destruction, a world where the threats of the last century have 
largely been vanquished but the timeless demons of hate and fear and new 
destructive possibilities rooted in new technologies and new networks 
are with us, in a world where millions still struggle for liberty, 
decency, and the very basics of life.
    Today America thanks you for your commitment, renews our pledge to 
stand with you, and asks you to continue to do your best and give your 
best for freedom. The last 50 years are proof that when you do your job, 
and we support you, the world is a much, much better place.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 10 a.m. in Hangar 3 at Andrews Air Force 
Base. In his remarks, he referred to former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff Gen. David C. Jones, USAF, (Ret.), and Gen. John M. 
Shalikashvili, USA; President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; and President 
Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and 
Montenegro).